The mayor took questions from reporters. The first question came from WBAL's Robert Lang. Download This File

In her first public appearance since the owners of Santoni's of Highlandtown announced they were closing their store solely because of the city's bottle tax, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake held a news conference to defend the tax.

Rawlings-Blake told reporters that "it's sad," but linking the bottle tax to the closing "ignores the facts."

The mayor said that the economy and other factors led to the decision by owner Rob Santoni, Jr. She would not acknowledge that the tax even played a role in the decision.

"I don't have to acknowledge, he's the one that acknowledged it, that's what he believes. I'm not here to dispute that," the mayor said.

"What I am saying is that anytime we lose a small business, it impacts us all. That being said, one thing I'm being said is that we have markets that are coming in, markets that are being built, markets that we are cutting the ribbons on, that are really speaking to the needs of the community."

The mayor says five supermarkets have opened in the last year in the city. Just last week a Target with a grocery store opened in Canton Crossing.

In a news release Sunday night, and in a pair of interviews with WBAL Radio on Monday, Santoni said the bottle tax was the sole reason for his decision to close the store after 83 years at the end of the month. Eighty people will lose their jobs.

The mayor said that the tax has provided money to close the city's deficit and to help fund school construction projects.

"No one likes more taxes, but kicking the can down the road when it comes to our schools is no longer an option," the mayor said.

Santoni also said that the mayor never spoke to small business owners about the tax.

The mayor said that was not true. She noted the city council originally consider a 5-cent-a-bottle tax on beverages in 2010, but that was lowered to 2-cents-a-bottle. She also pointed out that two-liter sodas, milk and certain fruit juices are exempt from the tax. In 2012, the city council voted to increase the tax to 5-cents-a-bottle. The higher tax took effect in July.

Santoni argued that his beverage sales fell 28% in the three years since the tax was in place.

The Baltimore City Department of Finance declined to release what Santoni paid in beverage taxes. A spokeswoman for the mayor, Caron Brace, said the city's law department advised officials they could not release the information because it is proprietary information.

The city did say the beverage tax raised nearly $4.9-million in its first year, more than $5.3-million in its second year, and nearly $5-million in its third year. Since July, when the higher tax rate took effect, the city has collected nearly $2.3-million. Brace said the city is project to collect more than $10-million by the end of the current fiscal year.

Santoni's was also the exclusive partner with the city health department for the "virtual shopping" program, where people in low-income neighborhoods without supermarkets could order groceries online at a number if city libraries and senior centers. Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot announced today that the program would be suspended temporarily, while the city looks for a new supermarket partner.

Barbot says the 500 people who have been helped by the program are being referred to community food banks and other organizations.